An Investigation Of Gender Differences In Occupational Stress And General Well Being

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between gender, occupational stress, well-being and coping among a gender-balanced group of 302 untenured assistant professors. The group perceived high levels of life stress and medium high levels of work stress. As hypothesized, women expressed more life stress but, contrary to expectations, the work stress among women was only slightly higher than among men. There were no gender differences in coping. Thus, in this occupational setting, women handled work stress just as well as their male counterparts.